Page 5 of Party Favors

Vella scared me a little bit, too—she looked like a more murderous Wednesday Addams. Jet-black hair, heavy eye makeup, always dressed like she was about to attend a funeral.

Given what I’d heard about real estate in New York City, I should have been suspicious that she was charging me so little. I later discovered it was because she hadn’t been able to get anyone else to agree to move in. I assumed that was partly due to her one rule—under no circumstances was I to ever, ever go in her locked bedroom.

I had slept with a butter knife under my pillow for the first few weeks because she was so unlike anyone I’d ever met that I feared a bit for my safety. I probably should have grabbed a more heavy-duty knife, but I was pretty sure that I’d accidentally stab myself while sleeping.

But the apartment was only a couple of blocks from work, so I told myself that I could buck up and deal with my situation.

My overactive imagination did not help my resolution, though, especially when I came up with so many different scenarios for what she had hidden in her room that she didn’t want me to see.

We had lived completely separate lives, barely even speaking. I’d wondered how she could jump from job to job while affording rent and finally asked her about it.

“My father covers my rent,” she said with a glum tone that indicated she wasn’t on the best of terms with her dad.

“What does he do for a living?”

“Violates the planet.” At my raised eyebrows, she added, “He owns an oil company.”

I never would have guessed that Vella came from that kind of money.

After we’d lived together for about four months, everything changed. I came home one night to find Vella lying in the middle of our living room, arms and legs spread out like a starfish.

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to ask or not, but I couldn’t help myself. “Are you okay?”

She turned her head toward me. “My grandfather just died. He was the only person in my family who was nice to me.”

I sat down next to her on the floor. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

She considered my words and then said, “I want to go to church and light a candle for him.”

I attempted to conceal my surprise. “I didn’t peg you as being religious.”

“I’m not. But church was important to him, and I think it would make him happy to know that I’d done it.”

So we found a nearby church and went in and took turns lighting candles. We stood there in silence for a minute or two.

“Who are you lighting a candle for?” she asked in a solemn voice.

“My aunt Louise.”

“When did she pass?”

“Oh no, she’s not dead, she’s just a really bad person,” I said. “I don’t think she’ll ever die. I’m pretty sure she’s just going to change form.”

A couple of beats passed, and then Vella started to giggle. I couldn’t help myself and laughed along with her. The fact that we were doing it at such an inappropriate time and place made the giggles worse. We got some disapproving looks and had to go back out to the sidewalk, where we collapsed against each other, hysterically laughing.

We opened up to one another that night, realized how much we liked each other, and had been best friends ever since.

People always seemed surprised when they saw us hanging out together. That was probably because we were like what would happen if you opened up an internet browser and did an image search fortotal opposites. She was dark and gloomy and scary, and I was overly optimistic and loved everybody and blonde.

Well, I used to be blonde. It had been actual eons since I’d last dyed my hair, and my brown roots were just my hair color now.

I got on my laptop and had started making a list of ways to convince Vella to take the job when she breezed into the apartment, slamming the front door. “Are you interested in hearing what our neighbors were loudly discussing at five o’clock this morning? I recorded them. I’m going to download the file and send it to them with the title ‘You Two Should Break Up.’”

Our neighbors had ridiculously loud arguments, and while I understood that the noise of people around you was part of living in an apartment building, they seemed to consider it their particular mission to be as obnoxious as possible. I used earplugs to sleep through their early-morning fights, but given that her bedroom adjoined theirs, Vella was directly in their arguments’ flight path and couldn’t escape the sound, no matter how many white-noise machines she used.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what I should do to get revenge,” she mused. “Remember when I was in that grunge band? I was consideringgoing over to my storage unit, getting my amplifier and my electric guitar.”

“You’re planning on annoying them with your bad playing?” I teased, but her face was completely serious.

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